I am a little more than half way through with my D.Min. in Christian Spirituality. It is an interesting process and program and when push comes to shove, I am glad I making some use of my continuing education. Due to the Church’s requirement that I take continuing education, and the parish’s contribution to such, I can actually foresee the possibility of another degree program in the future, especially given the alternative means of delivering instruction. Maybe a MA/MS in psychology or philosophy or some other such thing. But I digress…doing a program focused on spirituality has allowed me to read some wonderful books, to explore my own sense of spirituality, and to reassess both how I lead a spiritual community and what it means to practice spirituality myself. All of this has been good for me in the short term, and I am sure it will prove to be so for the long term. At the center, I still think of my spirituality as catholic and monastic, though I am neither a Roman Catholic nor am I a monastic. Yet both have deeply influenced me. The writings of Abbas and Ammas east and west, the historic liturgy and the sacraments, St. Benedict and Thomas Merton and St. John of Kronstadt…not to mention Luther, Gerhard, Arndt, Piepkorn, Braaten, Jenson, Yeago, and Root. These are the people who formed me and continue to form me.
I haven’t written about the results of the ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly. That is a very intentional decision. It is not that I have nothing to say on the matter, it is that my thoughts are very scattered at the moment. It is also because I do not wish to become part of the prevailing “debate” in the Church about what is going on. I already see the notion of “respecting bound conscience” breaking down right and left. Outside of the debate floor, the tone of much of the discussion is virulent and hateful. Both sides seek to eviscerate their opponents, and I have no interest in participating. In fact, I have spent progressively less time even reading the debates, making a conscious decision to turn to prayer during this time of upheaval.
I’ve written in plenty of places about the beauty of the Divine Office, and don’t want to rehash that. In fact, my own practice of the Office has changed over the years. I once saw the Office through the eyes of Law: no slacking, be attentive, something is wrong with you if you miss an hour or a day, etc. Now I am very happy that I am simply praying through what the modern Roman Office calls the Office of Readings. I use Benedictine Daily Prayer as my primary breviary, and the editor prefers to call this by the traditional name of Vigils. I pray other offices when I can, but I don’t beat myself up over it. Far from me retreating into an office or prayer closet, I find myself sitting at the dining room table while my children play in the living room. Singing of hymns are often mixed with the tunes I hear on Super Why or Max and Ruby.
Today is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The readings were wonderful, the psalms were uplifting, and right as I was getting wrapped up in the beauty of the Te Deum, I hear the words, “Daddy, I pee-peed.” Yes, right there in the middle of the white robed-martyrs, the angels and saints all praising God, life carried on and my preschooler needed to be changed. Without hesitation I left the breviary at the table, scooped up my embarrassed daughter (who is trying so hard to learn to use the potty), and went about clean up duty. Making sure that my little girl was dry, happy and in possession of her favorite blanket, I returned to the table for the last four of five minutes of prayer time with a whole new perspective: what must it have been like for Ss. Anna and Joachim to potty train the Blessed Virgin? What must it have been like for Blessed Mary and Joseph to change the diaper of the one sent to be messiah? All of a sudden it all felt so real, so close, so familiar.
I think people get discouraged when they seek to have these grand spiritual experiences and they do not come. Having taught centering prayer for a number of years, I find it odd how many people are ready to give up after a few days or weeks of practice because, “this doesn’t work.” They aren’t seeing visions that the great spiritual masters saw, so something must be wrong. The truth is, very few of us will see anything of the sort. This is a good thing, because if we did see visions and have raptures, we would spend all our time chasing them. The real fruits of prayer are found in the mundane, in the every day, in the oh-so-ordinary. It is found in doing the breakfast dishes, in mowing the lawn, in paying bills, in changing a baby. I think a real world spirituality doesn’t seek to divide the sacred from the profane, the ordinary from the divine; it sees it as all being part of one continuous world where God’s Spirit is active and present.